Federal housing law stops penalizing state-legal marijuana use
H.R. 6807 — Marijuana in Federally Assisted Housing Parity Act of 2025 · Filed by Eleanor Norton (D-DC) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Dec 17, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends federal housing law to prevent landlords and housing authorities from denying occupancy to tenants or their household members who use, possess, sell, or manufacture marijuana in compliance with state law. It also requires HUD to issue regulations treating marijuana smoking the same as tobacco smoking in federally assisted housing (restricting it to designated areas). The bill protects state-legal marijuana users from federal housing discrimination while maintaining smoke-free zone rules.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a civil-rights carve-out: it removes state-legal marijuana use from the definition of disqualifying conduct in federal housing law. This is a straightforward anti-discrimination measure, not a deregulation or subsidy.
What the text implies
- Creates potential conflict between federal housing law (which now permits state-legal marijuana) and federal criminal law (which still classifies marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance), though the bill does not resolve this tension.
- HUD smoke-free regulations (due within 90 days) will determine practical enforcement; overly restrictive rules could undermine the bill's core protection by making marijuana use infeasible in practice.
- Does not address employment screening or background checks for housing applicants; landlords may still deny housing based on marijuana-related criminal convictions, even if the underlying conduct is now state-legal.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Tenants in states where marijuana is legal gain a concrete right: they cannot be evicted or denied housing solely for state-compliant marijuana use. This removes a federal penalty for lawful state conduct and protects vulnerable populations (renters in public and assisted housing) from arbitrary discrimination based on legal activity.
Named in the bill
HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development), Public Housing Agencies, Federally Assisted Housing Owners, United States Housing Act of 1937, Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998, Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 2 Democrats.
- Dec 17, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Dec 17, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Financial Services · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $30,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 11 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Eleanor Norton, the sponsor, reported $12,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Students for Sensible Drug Policy — $30,000 on 1 filing
- Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights — $0 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 21, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (5,070 characters) on May 4, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 21, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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